Monday, April 30, 2012

[Atomic Robo] Super-Secret Playtest

I trekked down to San Diego yesterday to run a super-secret playtest of Atomic Roboas part of a Gam3rcon Game Day. It was advertised thusly:

Super-Secret Evil Hat RPG PlaytestThis is an early playtest of an RPG in development, to be published by Evil Hat Productions (Spirit of the Century, The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game). Your name will appear in the credits as a playtester. All necessary materials will be provided. That's, uh... about all we can say about it. Don't worry; it'll be fun. Remain calm and trust in Science.

It was a pretty loose little adventure, inspired by this charming but absolutely bogus "news" article from a few years ago, and my four players and I had a good time. Feedback was very positive. They liked the way skills work. They liked being able to define their characters during play, in the moment, instead of doing everything in advance. They liked collateral consequences. They liked the story. Basically, they thought everything was great.

Normally, that'd be fine, but c'mon! Playtest! Gimme problems! Back to the drawing board... to... look at the drawing board, I guess.

Seriously though, I'm not especially concerned with the lack of issues -- I'm happy everything went smoothly, plus there's enough to do as it is, thanks -- and it's actually even more notable considering that two of my players were 12-year-old twins with no prior FATE experience. They were able to pick it all up with minimal difficulty, aspects and all, and even managed a couple perfectly valid self-compels, so that's encouraging. Maybe it helped that they're already Atomic Robo fans, which, of course, means they're smart.

So when and where is the next Super-Secret Playtest? You're not cleared to know that, Citizen. (Wrong game.)

Phase I: Background

Mike Olson is a freelance RPG writer, designer, and editor. His credits include -- in chronological order! -- Legends of Anglerre (Cubicle 7), The Kerberos Club (Fate Edition) (Arc Dream), Fate Core System (Evil Hat), Fate Accelerated Edition (Evil Hat), and Atomic Robo: The Roleplaying Game (Evil Hat). When he's not doing that, he's a full-time dad and husband, although his wife gives him more vacation days than his two boys do.

Looking for Guy Bowring's sweet Fate take on Greyhawk, the classic AD&D setting? He has his own blog now! Check out spiritofgreyhawk.blogspot.com.